The hippocampus, a region of the brain located below the cortex, plays important roles in memory and navigation. Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia have been shown to affect and damage this area of the brain, resulting in early symptoms, including short-term memory loss and disorientation. People with hippocampal damage may lose the ability to form and retain new memories. It is also closely related to other diseases such as epilepsy, schizophrenia, transient global amnesia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
But now, a research team led by Lam Woo Professor of Biomedical Engineering Ed X. Wu from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Hong Kong has made a major revelation of the brain’s mysteries regarding an unknown hippocampal function. so far: hippocampal connectivity integrates widely spaced brain regions, playing a key and central role in brain function. The results of the study indicate that the hippocampus can be considered as the ‘heart’ of the brain , an advance in our understanding of how the thinking organ works.
Rodent research, led by Professor Wu, revealed that low-frequency activities in the hippocampus can lead to functional brain connectivity in the cerebral cortex and enhance sensory responses. The cerebral cortex is the largest region of the mammalian brain and plays a key role in many functions, including memory, attention, perception, cognition, awareness, thinking, language, and consciousness. In other words, the low-frequency activities of the hippocampus can drive the functional integration of different regions of the cerebral cortex and improve the responsiveness of vision, hearing, and touch.
A possible therapeutic route for Alzheimer’s
Furthermore, these results also suggest that low-frequency activities in the hippocampus, which often occur during deep sleep, can improve learning and memory. Precisely these two, learning and memory, usually settle in the brain during deep sleep.
Slow wave sleep, also called deep sleep, is a state in which the brain enters several times each night and is necessary for survival. Alzheimer’s is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and worsens over time, with the most common early symptom being memory loss. These results may also have potential therapeutic implications in Alzheimer’s disease.
The findings have been published in the international academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
The human brain only accounts for 2% of total body weight, yet it consumes approximately 20% of the body’s total energy demand. It is the source of our thoughts, emotions, perceptions, actions, and memories. Despite its importance, it is one of the least understood organs in the body. A great challenge for neuroscience in the 21st century is to achieve an integrated understanding of large-scale brain interactions, particularly the patterns of neural activities that give rise to functions and behavior.
References:
Russell W. Chan. ‘Low-frequency hippocampal – cortical activity drives brain-wide resting-state functional MRI connectivity’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1703309114
